Healthy Weight Loss

~ Through an Unconventional Method

In this article I am going to introduce you to a new concept of
healthy weight loss. Weight loss is a very controversial subject.
Everyone wants to tell you what you should do and what you shouldn’t do.
Because of this, loosing weight is often surrounded with enormous
amounts of guilt regarding what you did or failed to do.

Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality. ~ Ralph Marston

Often, the healthy weight loss programs out there revolve around selling you their food or selling you their supplement. Fact: Diet plans sell. Fact: Everyone wants to lose weight!

The healthy
weight loss plan that I recommend is the easiest I know and what I had
already found, through my own intuition about a year ago. In fact, what
I will describe is so easy for body fat loss, NOT muscle loss, that I don’t know why it isn’t more popular. Oh, yes – I do know why it isn’t more popular! It’s because you don’t have to buy food or supplements to do this. In fact, the plan that I describe will actually save you money.

What
I am going to say is very controversial indeed. When I first wrote
'Healthy Eating' I tried to give a
quick and easy rundown of how to eat healthy foods. This would
automatically lead you to a healthy weight loss. I stayed tried and
true to conventional wisdom, even though I am a rather unconventional
nurse. It was just too difficult to step out of my comfort zone and
state what I truly believed.

However, stepping outside of one’s
comfort zone is always necessary for growth to a new level, especially for someone like me, in my 50's, getting ingrained in one’s ways is very easy to do.
So here I go with my intuitive and experiential ideas about healthy
weight loss.

This is NOT Your Standard Medical Advice

First point of note: If you are looking to see what the medical community has to say about healthy weight loss, do not read on. What I have discovered for myself is shot apart by most conventional medical experts.

Second important word of note: Many
research studies support that a calorie restricted diet may be the
healthiest diet of all, because it may increase your life expectancy. You can read more on the topic if you wish at this article entitled "Calorie Restriction and Life Expectancy."
There is even a whole society called the Calorie Restriction Society
that has dedicated itself to helping people restrict their calories for
health.

But calorie restriction is not new, you say! We all know and
understand the fact that to lose weight you have to take in less than
your body needs! Yes, but what I will teach you is that you will once
again, need to listen to your body and re-adjust how it is you actually go about restricting your calories for healthy weight loss!

So,
let’s begin. Ask yourself and your body: Can losing weight actually
be healthy? Can I lose weight without suffering? Can I free myself
from obsessing about food? Can I find a plan for easy weight loss that
does not involve counting calories and measuring? Can I eat my
favorite foods? Can I find a healthy weight loss plan that is simple
with relatively no planning and no stress? And most important of all, can I find a healthy weight loss plan that costs me nothing outside of my ordinary grocery bill, and maybe even less than my ordinary grocery bill??

I will answer the questions for you – YES! The simple answer to how to achieve a healthy weight loss is - flexible, intermittent fasting. OMG you say! Really? Yes, really. It works for me and it can work for you.

I Dare You to Read On:

Brad Pilon, a nutritionist, scientist and body builder, is who
I admire most in the world of diet, fitness and weight loss. I
stumbled upon his ideas by total accident when I was looking for blogs
about foam rolling. I grew
very excited when I started reading about his philosophy, because in a
rare
moment I found a scientist and a expert that validated what I had
already learned about myself, by listening to my own body and its
intuition! What a find!

So before you click off this page, I dare
you to read on about what it is that is so attractive to me about
flexible, intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is not about
starving yourself to death or lowering your metabolism or losing muscle
mass, or feeling dizzy or woozy or suffering deeply! It really is a
healthy weight loss plan because it is a great way to tell your body to
burn fat, give it a digestive rest for cleansing out the colon, without
using ‘products’ and help you gain control over your obsession with
food.

In fact, the over-blown concept that we lower our
metabolic rate if we diet or fast is debunked by Brad Pilon in his
video below. He explains the real truth with real research subjects who are
obese. Check out this video if you want to learn more:

Intermittent fasting if you try it will help you with healthy weight
loss and will debunk all you have believed based on what conventional
wisdom has jammed down your throat. (Sorry for the somewhat angry
metaphor, but I do have strong feelings about the effect of marketing on
our behaviors.)

Intermittent fasting is the only thing I have found to
rid myself of those final, nasty 5 lbs. that just seem to hang on,
despite what I do. Read on, as I attempt to show how conventional
wisdom has failed us, according to my own personal experience.

Eating Frequently and Metabolism Myths

According
to conventional wisdom, I am to eat every 3-4 hours to keep up my
metabolic rate or even more frequent eating to prevent muscle loss if
you are a body builder. This is to prevent me from going into the
starvation mode. If my body goes into starvation mode it will slow down
and store fat. Egads! Not what I want at all. This is supposed to
lead us to the path of healthy weight loss.

My personal truth, however, is that if I have to eat every 3-4 hours, all I think about is food and eating. This plan turns my thoughts and my energy towards food, each and every day, all day long.
What will I eat next, that is nutritional, but low calorie and will
hold me until the next 4 hours are up? The 4 hours then feel like an
eternity, as I watch the count-down to my next meal, further turning my
focus constantly to food! This constant focus on food leads me to
feeling deprived all the time, instead of to the healthy weight loss I
was looking for!

According to the nutritional expert, Brad Pilon,
it doesn’t matter if you eat carbs, fat or whatever, your body will
still burn what it is fed – not necessarily will it burn body fat. If
you eat carbs, the body will burn carbs. If you eat fat, the body will
burn fat. On the other hand, if you eat NOTHING you will surely force
your body to burn stored body fat. That is the purpose of fat. To keep you fed during the times it has no food! Hmmmm. Got you thinking yet??

The truth of the 4-5 meal/day eating plan was I never felt full – ever. I was constantly hungry. In my opinion, this is the starvation plan!
All my waking hours were consumed with food and what to eat next. I
had to carry little packets of food everywhere I went, to ensure that
there was a constant, ready supply of nutritional, healthy foods.

I
could never indulge in ‘real food’ without suffering guilt. If I
needed to restrict my calories to 1400/day (as a small female, 5’3”) to
lose 1 lb a week, I need to divide 1400 calories/5 meals a day. That
leaves me with 280-calorie meals! Not much of a meal! Unless all you
want to eat is a apple with a tablespoon of peanut butter and a side of
broccoli for every meal!

If you are a large guy that body builds,
maybe this plan could work for you. 600 calories make a better meal!
At least you could have a full chicken breast, broccoli and a cup of
brown rice!!

The physical body is a very, very efficient
storage system for food. We all can attest to this by how extremely
hard it is to lose weight! In light of this fact, why in the world would I choose to eat every 3-4 hours???? Wouldn’t this prevent
me from loosing weight and losing stored body fat??? This was
extremely counter-intuitive for me. What was intuitive for me, for
healthy weight loss, as I listened to what my body told me, was that
sticking to a low calorie, 4-5 meal/day plan would never work for me! It
would never lead me to that illusive healthy weight loss if all I ever
did was focus on food.

Frequent Meals Leads to Obsession with Food

When I am happy, doing what I love,
allowing my energy to flow outward toward the Universe, I forget about
food for hours! The last thing I want to do is to stop every couple of
hours to worry about what I need to eat!

As you know if you read
my site, where the mind goes, the energy follows. I do not want my mind
preoccupied with food all day long. It worsens the problem for me.
It has lead to weight loss, but never for long. Healthy weight loss is
taking it off and keeping it off.

I try to pay attention, if I am
hungry or not. Just because my stomach growls doesn’t mean I have to
eat at the moment. I choose to not obsess over food. The amount of food we really want to eat anyway always amounts to over consumption!
As a small person, the amount of food I need a week is much, much less
than I would like, to maintain my weight. So I learned that I needed
to do something for a healthy weight loss that could be sustainable for
me. And that something is intermittent fasting.

Desert Indian Paintbrush, near Moab, Utah

I make the choice to eat less. I make the choice to eat less
by flexible, intermittent fasting. That way I can turn off the
obsession over food. This is a different concept all together.

I
choose to take in less than my body needs. I chose to have a
calorie-restricted diet through intermittent fasting. I choose
flexible, intermittent fasting several days a week. If my weight starts
to creep up, because I forgot how few calories it actually takes to stay
alive and healthy, I may choose to fast 3 days a week.

As you age, the truth is you need less and less calories a day. The
reason for the middle aged spread is because most middle agers get less
and less activity due to increasing inertia at the same time the body’s
calorie demands are lessening. Add hormonal changes to the
mix and you get a recipe for weight gain. It can start slowly, and then
before you know it, you’ve gained 20 lbs!

Can You Turn Off Your Food Switch?

When I fast it is of my
choosing, to feel better and for my health. I choose the flexible time
period that works for me for that day, as I see fit. I don't have to
count calories, buy expensive meal plans or follow strict food
guidelines. All the unpleasantness about dieting is gone because I just
turn off the food switch.

I feel my best when I wake up,
meditate, stretch and do exercises for my body, and then write. I
pour myself into my passion. Then, when I am ready, often about 4-5
o’clock in the afternoon, I eat a large, filling meal. When I do
this for several days in a row I find that I no longer focus on food. I
actually desire less. My stomach feels full with less food. I feel
full at least once a day. This is very satisfying for me.

Flexible, intermittent fasting can help you in your body awareness for why it is you eat. It can help break the psychological expectation that it is mealtime!!!
So much of hunger is the expectation to eat. If it is noon, it must
be time to eat lunch! When you say, “I am starving’ it is just not
true. It just means that you desire to eat!!

Rationalizations
that you make up regarding when you need to eat and what you need to
eat are amazing! Body awareness regarding your emotional issues
surrounding food can be better understood through fasting and breaking
the psychological habit surrounding food. Intermittent fasting will break through psychological barriers and will lead you to healthy weight loss.

If
you like the Paleo Diet (caveman diet) you would believe that binging
when the hunt was good or the berries/nuts were in season and then
fasting for periods when the food was less abundant, was a regular,
normal way of life. Maybe even the way we evolved to metabolize food
the best?

So I challenge you to step outside of conventional wisdom and try flexible, intermittent fasting. Break the food habit. Break the obsessive cycle. Turn the
switch off for a short while. Give your colon a rest from the constant
food fest, the constant 'fed state.' Regain control of your eating
habits through flexible, intermittent fasting. Learn to enjoy what you
eat when you do eat. Choose healthy weight loss through intermittent
fasting. It works for me and it can work for you.

Benefits of Flexible, Intermittent Fasting

According to Brad Pilon, nutritionist, scientist and body builder, the following are benefits of flexible, intermittent fasting:

Reduction
of inflammation in the tissues of the body. More and more medical
studies show that inflammation in the body is the precursor to ALL
disease.

Reduces the oxidative stress on your body, by reducing
the production of free-radicals. Anti-oxidants are what destroys
disease-producing free-radicals and are found in all fruits and
vegetables.

Reduction in lipid peroxidation.
This is the process whereby free radicals ravage our cells and cause
cell membrane damage. This produces a downward spiral in the health of
the cell and the end product of lipid peroxidation may be cancer cells.

Improvement in Tumor Necrosis Factor, an immune system stimulant. TNF boosts your immune system to better fight off disease.

Improvement in brain-derived neutrotrophic factors,
necessary proteins for optimum function of the brain and peripheral
nervous system. These factors boost your memory and other brain and
nerve functions.

Causes a dramatic drop in insulin, an important factor in preventing insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes.

Improves levels of growth hormone, an important protein for cell growth and rejuvenation. In other words, it is anti-aging!

Reduction in body weight and reduction of body fat, extremely important for body builders!

Increased longevity due to the above factors and other factors not yet understood.

Psychological benefits that come with losing weight and body fat, resulting in an upward spiral.

Flexible,
intermittent fasting allows for less stress on the body system, at
least for a while. It gives the body a rest, just like you give the
body a rest from resistance training or give it a rest from running, and
other physical activities. The rest is an extremely important time for
recovery! This feels true to me for intermittent fasting as well. It
feels intuitively correct, because it works for me.

I would love to be your coach to teach you the most effective ways to do
intermittent fasting, on your path to healthy weight loss. It really does work, because it has worked for me and continues to work when my weight gets ahead of me. I now offer donation-based coaching services, so you no longer have an excuse not to try my holistic health coaching! Please click here for more information.

May
your path to healing of your body-mind-soul through flexible,
intermittent fasting begin, and may you find the healthy weight loss
that you desire!

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